


Past of the future, future of the past...

by BlackjackGabbiani, mgrgfan



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Gen, Orion Drive, arcane science, atomic rockets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 02:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16693300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackjackGabbiani/pseuds/BlackjackGabbiani, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mgrgfan/pseuds/mgrgfan
Summary: What happens, when an advanced ancient Empire, technologically advanced and full of justified atomic optimism, finds itself in the normal Pokemon world? A lot of craziness ensues.





	1. Prologue: Once upon a time…

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note - this fic is based on a pretty weird alternate universe and includes advanced ancient empire with advanced nuclear industry and arcanotechnology. More data about it can be found in the masterpost on my tumblr - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/162507092192/mrgrfans-fanfiction-and-worldbuilding-masterpost

The universe is a strange thing. A smallest change in the single chain of events can produce incredible amounts of new timelines.

In one of them, Ancient Soris Empire never came to be. Worlds from this timeline are the most known ones.

In other, it came to be and never experienced the Ancient Soris War. It took only a few generations, until the entire world was united, and one more, until the gaze got turned to the stars. When the time, known to us as “present”, came, they’ve already had colony near the another star.

In yet another, it was completely obliterated during the Ancient Soris War, waged and won by the local Legendaries. For the thousands of years, Soris was pushed back into stone age, where Pokemon reigned supreme.

In yet another, sorisian people won the war and killed their Legendaries, but at terrible cost. However, even in the horrible, sorry state, life in the Soris continued. In this timeline, Soris gave birth to two megacorporations, which later will (not so) silently oppose the world government and, in the spirit of the Ancient Soris Empire, about which they’ve had no idea until very recently, try to build better and safer future for the humans.

However, in one of the strangest of them, Soris Legendaries decided to attempt to erase the Ancient Soris Empire from the time itself. No one truly knows, what has happened this day, but the result is known well - the Legendaries disappeared forever and the Empire, along with its creations, were moved 3100 years into future. This is the timeline, which this story will follow…


	2. Chapter 1: A new day, an old world.

"What the heck?" asked no one in particular captain of the Space Lab 2, the most advanced space station of the Soris Empire, after the strange flash temporarily blinded sensors.

"No idea…" the pilot started to respond, but sound of the collision warning siren interrupted his speech. "WHAT?!"

Quick jump to the maneuvering control console, look at the combined locator screen - and it was apparent, that _something_ has happened, since the orbit now was very densely populated with satellites of unknown origin, in addition to the imperial ones. It wasn’t of their main concern now, though, because emergency automatics aboard satellites had already established a network and began collision avoidance maneuvers. No, the main problem was, that the Space Lab Two was on the collision course with some objects, which they didn’t identify, because of lack of time.

"Transfer to manual control, surge all power units, emergency thrusters at max," the pilot frantically scrambled through settings, then screamed into intercom. "Everybody hold on - this can get very ugly!"

Right after these words, both station’s orbit correction thrusters and maneuvering thrusters of some of the docked vehicles fired, barely managing to drive the station away from the collision course with one of the satellites and putting it on the safer orbit, which, however, was almost intersecting with unidentified smaller space station.

"Crisis, so far, averted," the pilot exhaled, wiping the sweat out of his forehead, switching through cameras and then freezing. "Captain - I think you’d want to see this."

"What exact…" the commander of the station started to say, but went silent, when he looked at the display, which showed many cities on Earth. This won’t be anything special… if not for the fact, that most of them weren’t located in Soris, but, rather, in primitive regions, such as Kalos or Unova.

 

\- -

 

"What. Is. This?" whispered Anthony Falkis, honoured astronaut of the Pokemon Nation, looking at the locator panel, which showed, how the unknown satellite, which just… appeared out of nowhere, nearly collided with the space station, barely managing to fire small engines and evade.

"Cupola module here" sounded the station-wide announcement. "We all recommend you to get to your nearest Earth-pointed illuminator and look at it."

Anthony followed this lead, looked out… and saw the Soris, the region, in which any human colonists just disappeared shortly after arrival, blazing with lights of huge cities.

"Do you think, that it may be… linked?" asked Sarah Donnager Anthony, who’ve just flown in this part of the station.

"If you’re about what the Reverse World's just happened - probably…"

 

\- -

 

"What the fu…" voice of one of the radar operators went unnoticed in the Mossdeep Space Centre’s Mission Control Centre, which was drowning in screams of shock and disbelief, as the screens of the orbit monitoring radars got flooded with unidentified signatures, ranging from the brick-sized, to the bus-sized, to the monster, bigger than the Nation’s Space Station.

"QUIET!!!" ringed from the PA loudspeakers. It didn’t calm down everyone instantly, but, at least, lowered the scream levels to tolerable.

"Sinnoh observatory confirms, that the unidentified objects are, in fact, present in the space and aren’t just glitches of our tracking systems," said one of the younger operators in the microphone, now routed to the loudspeakers. "And… I think you all need to see this."

The orbital map on the main screen got replaced with a view from the NSS’ onboard camera, which showed Soris - a dead region… except it wasn’t dead anymore. In fact, some parts of it were shining so bright, one could confuse them with the greatest cities of Unova, if it was duplicated several dozens of times.

 

\- -

 

"This is just crazy," the Emperor mumbled, walking through the FCC’s command room. "You mean, we’ve just kinda teleported into a new world? Like… What, just what?"

"I don’t think so, Your Majesty," said one of the astronomers.

"Explain."

"According to the video from the Space Lab 2, as well as orbital telescope “Barabashov”… time moved roughly 3100 years ahead."

"… " everyone in the room went silent for a few minutes.

 

\- -

 

Celebi twitched a little, almost waking up from a sleep. It was like if something, which disappeared long ago in the flows of time, has suddenly resurfaced, but without few crucial components, which started it in the first place. It was like timeline was damaged or, at least, irreversibly changed. It was almost like the world was about to stray from the designated chain of events major time…


	3. Chapter 2: Handshake above the skies.

"So, comrades, we are in big clusterheck now," grimly said captain Vasilyev to the cosmonauts, who gathered in the station’s command module. "The ground control, basically, told us “Provide data and do whatever situation calls you to do, until we give you new orders”, the whole world has changed, the orbits are crowded now, and we are not alone up there anymore. Any ideas?"

"Propulsion is nice now," the pilot started to report. "Of course, we’ve used some propellant for changing orbit, but it wasn’t much. If anything, we can pump dry the cargo pods, along with 3-seated return pods, and use them to load propellant on the Lenticular Return Vehicle, so, even after the orbit’s change, we will be able to return to Earth. We’ll need to modify it first, though, but we have everything for it onboard."

"Orbit change, you say…" wondered the engineer, who also doubled as psychologist. "Can we join the unidentified space station?"

"… Well, theoretically, we can - given that we use most of our propellant for maneuvering and will be left with barely enough to deorbit the LRV, but should we?"

"Why not?" the captain of the station said, answering a question with a question. "It’s not like we have any better ideas at contacting them. We don’t know their frequencies, we don’t know their data encoding, we don’t know a thing!|

"Whatever you say, guys, I’ll just hover here and watch over the station’s parameters and engines," the pilot mumbled, floating towards the control console.

"Here goes nothing," suddenly decided the captain. "Join the unidentified space station and keep the distance between us and them in-between 180 and 210 meters."

"… Aye-aye, comrade captain. I’ll activate the propellant pumps now, to redistribute the propellant. The orbital maneuver will take some time, though."

"No problem. We’ll prepare the MMUs in the meantime."

\- -

 

"The MCC is silent," said Aneeta Gerst, flying away from the computer console. "Apparently, there’s quite a chaos down there."

"I can understand them," replied Sarah Donnager, who was hovering nearby. "After all, the whole region, which was previously dead and absolutely unwelcome, suddenly becoming inhabited and developed is not something, that happens everyday."

"Most definitely," mumbled Anthony Falkis, who was monitoring connections. "Wait a second… No, this can’t be… or can it?"

"What?" - asked him two women.

"According to the radar data from Mossdeep, unidentified huge space station has just started orbital maneuvering."

"And?"

"… It’s going to get near us."

"How? You sure, that they have enough delta-V?"

"Of course I am not, but the maneuver is too similar to those, performed by our crew transports and resupply ships."

"And what the Mossdeep says?"

"Mossdeep remains silent."

"How long to rendezvous?"

"Roughly two days."

"Two days, you say… enough to commence evacuation in pods several times. Should we do so, though?"

"Negative," came sudden reply from the Mossdeep. "Perform survey on the unidentified space station and, if possible, contact them."

"Contact them…" angrily whispered Samuel Franck. "How should we contact them, if we have no idea about their radio frequencies and encryptions? By flying to them on MMUs?"

\- -

 

"This thing is huge," commented Sarah, taking another picture of the unidentified space station, which had two contra-rotating centrifugal wheels, a few big parabolic mirrors, aimed at, presumably, some kind of boilers, a big set of heat radiators, an unidentified device, which possessed its own set of heat radiators, a six docked pods and a what looked like a flying half-saucer with steering fins, flaps and, yet again, deployed heat radiators, roughly twelve meters in diameter, docked to the “lowest” part of the station.

"I’m afraid to even imagine, how many resources were spent on building this thing…" said Gerst, flying closer to Sarah. "By the way, is it just me, or… do you see someone going on EVA?"

Donnager quickly took a camera again and tried to use zoom on it as an impromptu telescope. Thankfully, Cupola module, in which she was present, was spacious enough for her to aim the camera and see, that someone indeed has exited the unidentified space station and, using some kind of MMU, started to approach the National Space Station. However, roughly on the one-third of trip, the unidentified astronaut performed a deceleration burn and stopped, as if waiting for someone.

"Hey, girls," started Franck, who drifted to Cupola. "What…"

Seeing the looks in the eyes of two women and knowing, that current commander of the NSS will support them, Samuel has greatly regretted the words he whispered two days ago.

\- -

 

Samuel exited the airlock, preparing to do something inconceivable before. He put the hand on his MMU’s control stick and gently shifted it forward, flying to the unidentified space station, which had appeared less than a day ago. His trusty Reuniclus was in the Pokeball on the suit’s belt, ready to be released, should something happen.

From what he could see, there was a similar activity on the side of unidentified space station, which showed in the form of humanoid in advanced space suit flying towards him, propelled by the similar maneuvering unit.

Nearly two minutes after, they were, finally, close enough. For what it looked like, the unidentified humanoid could very well actually be human… but how?

Sam released his Reuniclus to try to establish the telepathic contact, but, right after that, his “opponent” took a huge, rectangular pistol-like device from the belt, threw a small instrument away, shot it with this device - the shot itself was invisible, save for how a part of the instrument instantly turned yellow-hot from it - and then took aim at Samuel.

Reuniclus prepared to attack the unknown individual, but Samuel ordered him not to. The alien astronaut pointed at the Reuniclus with a free hand, made a swiping gesture, pointed at the energy pistol and tapped at the belt.

Samuel, in response, pointed at the Reuniclus, then grabbed the pokeball and tapped at it with his index finger.

Alien astronaut repeated the gesture, so, Samuel decided to withdraw the Reuniclus, despite how the Multiplying Pokémon was objecting against it. Thankfully, the gesture was understood correctly, so unknown individual switched something on its pistol and put it back on the belt, before grabbing a small container.

Samuel was ready for another threat display, but, surprisingly, inside the container lied an sketchbook of some sort and several different pens. The unknown astronaut withdrew the sketchbook, took one of the pens and started drawing some strange symbols, adding lines over each of them.

“So, those are numbers. Nice,” thought Samuel, looking at how many lines correspond to what symbol. “And they use the base ten system. Even better.”

Right after it, alien astronaut stopped drawing and handed the sketchbook and pen to the Samuel. He wasted no time and drew national numbers right under the alien ones, then gave the sketchbook and pen back to the rightful owner.

Alien astronaut made a strange - hopefully, approving - gesture, then turned the page and started making new drawings.

\- -

 

"Vasya is doing pretty well," said commander of the Space Lab 2, looking at the screen, which displayed direct feed from the helmet cam.

"Of course he does. Though, comrade captain, I think you’ll have to give him reprimands for threatening unknown cosmonaut with laser multitool."

"I will, but later. Vasiliy," the captain announced into just-activated mic, "don’t forget, that you are here to get some basic info and then return to Lab!"

"I know, I know, I’m doing it," cosmonaut replied, who was busy exchanging drawings with cosmonaut from other space station. "It’s not like I have a lot of oxygen left. An hour or so - and I’ll get back… or not."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at my cam."

 

\- -

 

The oxygen meter showed, that it was time to return to the station. Samuel pointed at himself, backpack of the space suit, MMU and the National Space Station in succession. Alien astronaut understood it and extended its hand - probably, for the handshake. Franck, deciding, that here goes nothing, responded to this gesture by grasping the extended hand and actually shaking it. Just before the Nation’s astronaut turned away and activated the engines, unknown individual lifted the filter on his helmet, opening the view on the face - an unmistakably human face.


	4. Chapter 3: A hard day.

"Well, those three months were quite something," Anthony said, when the Space Shuttle finally stopped on the runway. "I mean, actual first contact situation, even if with humans!"

"Falkis, shut it for now," Sarah mumbled. "We'll have to explain this all over again to our superiors, when we return to the Mossdeep."

"Okay, whatever, miss Born-with-camera-in-hands."

Several seconds after it, the hatch in the side of the vehicle opened, the astronauts were safely removed from their seats with Psychic of the service Alakazam and put into the wheelchairs on the ground.

"Don't worry, guys'n'girls, it's just a precaution," sounded voice of professor Takao Cozmo, making Sarah and Samuel slightly cringe. Of course, this man was a genius, especially for someone, who just turned 20, but at times, he was just impossible to be around.

"We know," all four astronauts, along with the rest of Shuttle's crew, replied in unison. Of course, they wondered, why this mission only took astronauts down and didn't bring fresh crew...

 

\----

 

"Can you secure this thing now?"

"Wait… yeah, I'm securing it."

Captain Vasilyev hovered near the console, monitoring feeds from the helmet cameras of cosmonauts, along with their talks, and wondered, why exactly did it have to be yesterday for the station's backup power source, the nuclear fission reactor, to get stricken with some kind of space debris and get a total coolant leak. Of course, since the reactor wasn't activated for the entire duration of its staying in the station, there wasn't any imminent radiation hazard, but they still had to return it back to Zemlino Space Center for the inspection and repairs.

Right now, Lozhkin, Migulya and Panasenko were removing the reactor and loading it into the opened payload bay of the Lenticular Return Vehicle. There was some sort of a strange irony - today, the cosmonauts from both space stations were returning back to Earth.

"Comrade captain, the reactor was safely removed and is now secured in the payload bay of the LRV" sounded the proud voice of Migulya in the comm. "I think we're done here. Let us all pack up and go back home!"

"As a commander of this station, I give this proposal my complete approval!" announced Vasilyev to everyone. "Since we are all packed up already, I propose to fulfill it as soon as possible. To EVA team - go to station's primary airlock on the "Drum" module. I know, the LRV's backup airlock seems very nice, but we need to leave the MMUs and suits here for the next crew."

"Aye-aye, comrade captain!" reported the EVA team, firing up their MMUs and flying back to the first module of this great station. Since the airlock wasn't exactly spacious, they'll have to enter one by one - mostly because the MMUs were pretty huge. Of course, was it not for the advanced materials from Imperial Science Facility 9, which allowed creation of the normobaric EVA suits - the entire crew would've had to stay on the station for a few more hours.

Thankfully, when the EVA team finally got back into station and re-dressed, everyone else was ready.

"So, comrades, I want to congratulate you with the successful end of the 10th expedition to the Space Lab 2, which also served as a cornerstone for our relationship with… "Nationals", I think. So, anyway, we all served very well. Glory and long live to the Empire!"

"Glory and long live to the Empire!"

"Since the rest of our crew returned to Earth in pods already - thank the Emperor for launching that propellant tanker! - we can now return home at leisure pace. All hands - board the LRV and prepare for return."

"Aye-aye, comrade captain!"

 

\----

 

"Goodbye, Space Lab 2. We will miss you and try to return soon. Just wait for us," the pilot said, looking in the return vehicle’s main window. The space station, jewel in crown of the Empire’s space program, was left by its crew and switched to full-auto mode, waiting for the next bunch of people to take the residence in it for performing even more science operations and making even more discoveries. "Proceeding as normal, four hours until touchdown."

"Acknowledged," replied the captain, recollecting the events of past three months - the craziest months in his live so far. Contacts with cosmonauts from other regions of the world after the event, which was later named "The Shift"; nearly inviting them onboard the Space Lab 2 one time and only not doing this because of medic's advice; having to constantly help in writing reports to linguists back on the ground; making sure, that the space station works properly, especially before the propellant tanker gave them some more freedom in maneuvering… those months were most definitely crazy.

"Comrade captain, I have a small question - why aren't the replacement crew already there?" asked him Grigoriy, who served as a biologist and medic aboard the station.

"I don't know. Zemlino told me, that there were some hiccups with their launch vehicle, and their LRV is an experimental one, with fuel cells instead of nuclear reactor... they've decided not to rush it. Station can wait, after all, but losing cosmonauts is not an option. They were launched a few hours ago and will dock to the station tomorrow."

 

\----

 

"Hello there, darling," said man in plain clothes, entering the room. If not for the reaction of the Empress, not many would've thought, that this man was, in fact, the Emperor Ivan the Second himself. "How's your bad?"

"Like ****," replied Empress Svetlana in tired voice. "Trying to make negotiations through these crude translators, when we are no longer the most advanced country on the planet…"

"We still kinda are, in some branches."

"In some, mind it. So, trying to negotiate with what's, apparently, called "Pokemon Nation", process all the data, prevent instabilities within the Empire and so on and so on… It's so tiring. And you?"

"Not much better," said Ivan, starting to undress. "Since our main advantages are more advanced arcane science, nuclear physics and space technology…"

"You mean, you want to make orbital weapon platform," finished his wife. "I don't approve this idea. We aren't on exactly good terms with the Nation now and making them even worse isn't going to take us anywhere."

"Not quite, my dear, not quite. Do you remember the Project Tin Can?"

"Yes, and what?"

"Do you remember, what is it?"

"I don't. Honestly, Vanya, with so much work, I can't keep track of all of your projects."

"This project, my dear, is a nuclear pulse spaceship, whose wet mass measures 4000 tons. It uses small nuclear explosion devices, constructed to create a directed wave of superhot plasma upon detonation, for propulsion."

"And?"

"We've finished assembling the propulsion bus of this ship today. Pusher plate, shock absorbers, plasma deflection cone, gas gun for drive bombs, magazines and so on - this was quite a challenge! Now, we only need to construct the payload part…"

"Wait, actual nuclear explosion launch?! Dear, let me check your temperature…"

"No no no, don't be afraid! This thing will be boosted by the NUCLEUS superheavy chemical rocket and will only engage the bomb drive at high enough altitude!"

"Still, using demolition devices for propulsion… I think it's pretty crazy."

"Crazy or not, it should work. By the way, some time ago, Knyazev showed me a project of turning the "Red Explorer"..."

"The what?"

"The nuclear pulse ship - we've named it "Red Explorer", since it's designed to explore the Fourth Planet. So, he showed me project of turning the "Red Explorer" into warship, with retro-missiles for planetary bombardment, electromagnetic rail mass accelerators, point defence and so on…"

"Retro-missiles?"

"Okay, let me explain this for you. Retro-missile is a type of hypothetical space-to-surface weapon, which is launched against the orbital vector and uses its engines to decelerate to slower-than-orbital velocity and fall into gravity well of targeted planet/moon, later correcting direction of fall with smaller maneuvering engines to ensure, that it'll hit the intended target area."

"And what would be the true purpose of this monster? Considering, that all-out war is the latest thing we want?"

"I don't know. Knyazev is an already a strange one, always seeking to turn any project into the weapon…"

 

\----

 

"So, why exactly the next expedition wasn't launched?" Donnager asked in not-quite-slightly angry voice.

"I'm not supposed to tell it to you… but the reason for it is Rayquaza," half-whispered Cozmo

"Rayquaza? Isn't it the legend of Draconids?"

"I wish it was, but, as it recently turned out, it's a completely real Sky High Pokemon, and a very territorial one at that!"

"So…"

"Yes, the space stations will get destroyed any moment now. The road to space is now closed by the ruler of skies."

"..." Samuel clenched his fists in anger. He hoped, that the astronauts from the other station have also returned home.

 

\----

 

"... Nose gear touchdown!" the pilot of the LRV happily commented. "Deploying the drag chute…"

The pretty big machine, measuring 12 meters in diameter and looking somewhat like the flying saucer, deployed small fabric cupola behind itself, along with moving all control surfaces into positions for aerobraking, in order to lower the current velocity and prevent rolling off the runway.

Roughly twenty-five seconds later, the chute got detached and the machine soon ground to halt.

"Welcome back!" sounded from comm. "Guys - hang in there for a few more…"

"Zemlino, you're not clear, repeat, you're not clear!" said the pilot, trying to find the reason for the sudden cut-out in the words of flight control officer.

"... Guys, you don't even know, how lucky you were," finally replied the officer in flat and shaky voice. "Right now, the Space Lab 2 was destroyed by the Pokemon of Legendary power, known by hoennians as "Rayquaza", along with LRV-03. Second space station was also destroyed. The 11th expedition to the Space Lab 2… is no more."

"..." all cosmonauts froze. If not for this lucky early return, mostly forced by the need to return the reactor to Earth - they all would've been dead now. And their comrades weren't so lucky...

 

\----

 

"Dear, what's with you?" asked her husband the Empress. The Emperor, indeed, did not look good - he was pale in face, shaking and still staring at the screen of his portable computer.

"... Nothing too bad. Wait a second," said he, getting the portable telephone out of his case and calling someone. "Knyazev? I know you knew this, you bastard! Does not matter right now. Consult the medics, I guess, Psychics with ability to predict the future aren't abundant. Anyway, your altered version of the Project Tin Can has just got my total and complete approval. Consult the ISF 5 and 9 for required equipment. Yes. Does not matter, but make sure, that it'll be able to withstand hits with Hyper Beam without getting holes - at least not at the first hit."

Empress thought, that, whatever has happened, if it was enough to instantly convince her husband to turn the exploration ship, about which he dreamed for a very long time (at least as long as he was together with her), into the machine of war - it must be really bad… and yes, she saw the notification on her own computer - the notification, that the Rayquaza has just destroyed the LRV with the new expedition, measuring 12 cosmonauts total, and the Space Lab 2 along with the space station of the Pokemon Nation. Thankfully, all nuclear-powered satellites executed their contingency protocols flawlessly and moved onto graveyard orbits before this Pokemon would be able to destroy them and spill the nuclear fuel from their reactors.

"... Yes. No. Of course. Yes. Goodbye," Emperor ended his phone call and turned back to his wife. "Sorry, dear…"

"I know already. You know… I approve of it too. It'll help me rally the people of Soris together and lower the level of internal instabilities, as well as allow our people up here to protect themselves from attacks of this monster. So, you say, that this ship needs lots of nuclear materials?"

"Yes. At first, they were needed just for the drive bombs and reactor, but now, they'll also be needed for the weapons - shells for railguns, missiles and so on. We can remake some of our already-existing demolition devices into weapons, but that won't be enough."

"I understand. I think I can tailor this campaign as a sort of posthumous reverence for our cosmonauts. It'll really help us in keeping the Empire stable."

"Do it, if you want to do so. But we need to get this son-of-a-Red Spirit flying, lest the road to space be closed forever for us all."

"... Wait, nearly forgot - what about the political effect? Because, you know, getting something like this in orbit would be even worse, than actual weapon platforms!"

"I don't know. I'm sure you can deal with this, my dear." Emperor smiled gently after saying those words. Empress hated it, because she could never resist this smile. "Besides, once everything settles down, we can use this ship as it was originally intended - for exploring the Fourth Planet! The amounts of drive bombs and supplies should be sufficient for this and replacing the landers won't be a problem at all…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ISF - Imperial Science Facility.
> 
> Worldbuilding mini-note #1: Red Spirit - mystical being in the sorisian mythology, not directly linked to any of Legendaries. It's a somewhat malevolent entity, which, however, patrons those, who fight to avenge their comrades. Some sorisian warriors pray to the Red Spirit before battle to help them in the quest for revenge and, if they fall - make sure that their comrades will avenge their deaths.
> 
> Worldbuilding mini-note #2: Emperor Ivan Yevgeniyevich Bazarenko the Second is a very shitty ruler (hence why his wife rules the Soris Empire - he gave his throne to her as soon as he was able to), but is an awesome constructor of pretty much anything that flies. Because of that, he spends most of his time in the Imperial Aeronautics Institute, returning to the palace only on special occasions.
> 
> Worldbuilding mini-note #3: The Project Tin Can is based on the real Project Orion.
> 
> Worldbuilding mini-note #4: The Rayquaza's aggression and territorial tendencies are based on its depiction in the anime. The Shift may also have something to do with it.
> 
> Author's note: those three months will, eventually, get expanded upon in the small series of drabbles. Also, the next chapter will have much more action.


	5. Interlude. Different Points.

**_Soris Region, near Chernoholmsk, Imperial Rocket Factory #2._ **

Nikolai walked along the assembly line, checking the sounding rockets, before they'll get packed up, loaded into containers and delivered to the Zemlino Space Center.

Three months ago, the Rayquaza has destroyed both of the space stations in orbit, killed twelve cosmonauts and reduced the satellite groups of both Soris Empire and the Pokemon Nation to pretty much nothing. And that's not counting the destruction of anything, that goes higher than troposphere, such as research drones or high-altitude planes.

Since then, the Imperial Space Program took a hit, but, thanks to the personal support of the Empress, stayed strong. Right now, their primary priority was set to the atmospheric research, so, they've commissioned several hundreds of the modified A-100 sounding rockets - the fastest rockets in the world, capable of 100g of acceleration!

Speaking of which...

"... Why are those sounding rockets like this?" the worker thought, doing a check on the hull. "No ablative protection, which is very strange, considering their accelerations and resulting ram heating in the atmosphere, unusual science payload adapter, attitude jets instead of steering fins and, for what it looks like, radio command flight guidance system…"

"Surprised by how those rockets look?" asked him superior, who approached the worker undetected. "I'm also surprised by this order. It'll make sense, if they'll be used in space…"

"But what for?"

"... I don't know. And I think we better keep low and silent about it. They didn't double the payment and order me to increase your salaries for nothing."

 

**_Hoenn Region, Sootopolis._ **

"...And for the ending of the "Zap Rangers", we've planned…" TV fell silent.

"Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. Over and over again," said Valencia, switching the set off via button on the device itself and walking to the kitchen.

Ever since the Rayquaza got crazy and destroyed most of the stuff in orbit, then began a stratospheric blockade, pure chaos ensued.

In a lot of places cults sprung to life, calling, that the end of the world was near. Some of them had committed mass suicides, some - went into riots, allowing the looters of all sorts to flourish, some went into self-constructed shelters… it was true insanity.

And, as a Cheri Berry on top of that cake, many book and comic writers, along with producers of TV shows and so on, decided to tell everyone their plans on ending their works. The newspapers and networks were pretty much flooded with them. Valencia was even afraid to imagine, how much money they were getting from those exclusive interviews.

"Still nothing good?" a question sounded from the kitchen.

"Still nothing good," responded the woman, entering the room. In one of the chairs, a young man sat. If not for a slightly ragged look of his face, it would've been impossible to tell, that he was, actually, a Draconid.

"Damn. Gonna lay low for a few more weeks, I guess?" said Damien. His name was quite unusual for a member of this tribe… but it really helped him to get to his Sootopolian friend for a safe hiding, when the pogroms started. Even though, officially, Hoenn government had nothing against the Draconids, the fact, that those people worshipped Rayquaza, was enough of a trigger to allow humans, driven to hysterical paranoia by the acts of recently-resurfaced Sky High Pokemon and some medias, which were happily exploiting those events, to near-instantly resort to the unprovoked and indiscriminate violence. Even though most of the Draconids had powerful Pokemon with them, it often just made crazed people to switch to the swarming tactics, mixed with dirty fighting. Even great Draconid combatants weren't able to stand against fifty normal trainers and some more non-trainers at once, especially, when those people were specifically targeting the Draconid in question and going for the injuries at least.

"Of course," replied Valencia. She wondered, why the news networks weren't showing anything about Soris now and how they, with their different culture, reacted to what has happened several months ago.

 

**_Soris Region, near Zemlino, VAB #3_ **

"Contact zone reached," said the computer system in the cabin of the overhead crane. The slightly aged man threw a quick look at the screen in cabin, at the payload, at the destination, then gently shifted the left control stick, activating the hoist and lowering the turret with railgun, suspended on the crane's hook, to the workers below. Right now, the air conditioning system of the Vertical Assembly Building was being repaired and the clouds started to build up inside. It wasn't raining yet and most of the equipment was water-proofed for this very reason, but the condensation on the glass windows of the cabin was getting annoying for the operator, since it forced him to mostly rely on the instruments.

"Klim, the break is starting about now! Get down here!" sounded from the comm system. Klim Goncharenko, a very experienced crane operator - probably, the best one in the entire Empire, since the Emperor himself called him for participating in this operation - frowned a little.

"Okay, guys, but you know - I'm not into smoking. And know, if you've touched sandwiches, brought here by my wife… well, the unexpected bowel movements should start in roughly a minute or so!"

For a thirty seconds, there was an uneasy silence, soon followed by "Sanyuch, you fraggin' bastard!" and a sound of at least three men sprinting towards the restroom. Klim smiled and started to drive the crane back to the parking position, thinking about his son and sort-of-a-granddaughter, who stayed in the Imperial Science Facility 9.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VAB - Vertical Assembly Building.


	6. Chapter 4. Breaking the blockade.

"Finally," said the Emperor, looking at the monumental machine, placed in the largest temporary sort-of-a-VAB built so far. "Finally! FINALLY!!!"

Officers, which were standing not too far away from this genius, but a crazy one at that, exchanged looks of understanding. After all, this was his dream made real, even if forced to be remade for destruction… and protection.

The ship itself - the first real, atomic explo-flyer, envisioned long ago, but built only recently - was truly a masterpiece of technology. Massing 4000 tons fully loaded, equipped with the most advanced sensors, protected by the arcanotech-enhanced composite armor, armed with railguns, howitzers, rotary cannons, space combat missiles and retro-missiles for planetary bombardment, this was the most powerful warmachine of the Soris Empire... so far.

The nuclear fission reactor of this ship was built with inclusions of components from the reactor of Space Lab 2, as a way to drive the point of revenge and attract the blessing from the Red Spirit _(though barely anyone believed in this one)._ After all, according to the mythology, this spirit gave its blessing to anyone, who was fighting to avenge the fallen comrades.

Right now, the giant rocket was quietly sitting on the launchpad _(built specifically for it)_ and receiving final checks. The first stage - the NUCLEUS booster - had simple, but pretty efficient chemfuel engines, which used liquid hydrogen as fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidizer. A titanic tank of fuel in center of rocket, a sectionalized torus-like oxidizer tank around it, a monstrous plug-cluster aerospike engine right in the middle of bottom and several blocks of control engines near the edges - all of that could lift two thousand tons to orbit just by itself and then safely come back and land. However, that was not needed - it only needed to raise the payload roughly halfway to the space...

The payload - the first manned interplanetary spaceship in the history of the world, remade into first space warship - had the nuclear pulse engine. When the separation happens, the shock absorbers, collapsed for the duration of the first phase of launch to make the rocket more compact, will first extend to full length, then the shaped-blast charge will be launched from gas gun between them and fly through the trapdoor in the pusher plate, before exploding and launching a wave of superheated nuclear plasma, which will impact the plate, protected by the layer of graphite, and transfer the momentum to the ship through two stages of shock absorbers. Then the auto-sprayers will apply the new layer of graphite, the new bomb will be launched and explode, and then it will repeat again and again...

"Comrades, I think those nine months of accelerated work weren't for naught!" the Emperor finally stopped laughing like maniac and got himself together. "Prepare to remove the building shell. Prepare to fuel the NUCLEUS booster. All cosmonauts - prepare to board the ship. Begin the launch countdown."

"Aye-aye, Your Majesty. Countdown begins, T-72 hours and counting. Beginning the launch pad preparations. Beginning the VAB final disassembly."

Most of the stuff in the giant building was already removed in the preparation for launch. Now, the only thing they've needed to do was to activate fast-disassembly mechanisms, which will safely collapse the roof and walls outwards, without damaging the launch pad and the monstrous ship on it.

 

\----

 

Empress knew, that her husband was crazy.

She knew, that this launch can - and, likely, will - worsen the already-far-from-good terms, on which the Soris Empire now was with the Pokemon Nation _(culture clash did not help, especially with the whole thing about decent amounts of nationals worshipping Legendaries and Mythicals)._

She knew, that Nation can see it as an act of war.

But for some strange reason, she was nearly as excited to see this launch, as her husband was.

Or, actually, like the most of sorisians will be very, very soon, when the "Red Explorer" gets finally unveiled. After all, her internal political campaign about honoring the memory of 11th expedition to the Space Lab 2 really helped. The sheer growth of the metal processing and nuclear, chemical, arcanotechnological and many other industries, amongst other developments… it was wonderful.

Besides, this launch, should the ship survive the upcoming battle, will majorly lift her support. Even after all those years _(The Shift not included)_ , "Bread And Shows" still worked great time - both for the Soris Empire _(some parts of the space program, along with most entertainment)_ and Pokemon Nation _(League and Contests)_.

And if the Nation decides to try to attack them… well, that's what for the ship has several "Lightning" retro-missiles with city-buster warheads!

 

\----

 

"Look at this," said one of the operators in the Mossdeep Space Center, showing the director, who was walking nearby, transmission from the kantonian research plane, which was flying near the Soris. Right now, the biggest building in the complex of Zemlino Space Center has just… fallen apart, slightly reminding them of a flower, and revealed a giant rocket inside.

This rocket was roughly comparable to those, which Pokemon Nation used for the Moon missions… except much, much thicker.

"Are you even sure, that this is a rocket?" wondered director. "It's so huge… How would it even take off?"

"No idea," replied the operator. "I suggest we get some Cornn Berries and watch the fireworks, when the Rayquaza destroys this thing!"

"Be careful with your words!" notified him superior, then quietly added, "I agree. If they didn't get yet, that as soon as it flies to strato - it dies, then we can have some good views. Though I wonder, what they are overcompensating for…"

 

\----

 

"T-10 minutes and counting," announced one of the operators in Zemlino. After several very hard days of final workings and pre-flight checks, the "Red Explorer" was finally preparing to leave the ground. The nuclear reactor of the ship was now working at minimal capacity, cooling through external loop, the NUCLEUS booster was checking the thrust vectoring and aerodynamic control surfaces, the cosmonauts were getting more comfortable in their chairs… The final launch poll resulted in "go" and now there was only one way - the way up.

 

\----

 

"… Seventeen, sixteen, water suppression system online, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, ignition sequence start, six, we have ignition, four, three, two, all engines are running!" reported the announcer. "Liftoff! We have a liftoff, thirty-two minutes past the hour, liftoff on "Red Explorer"!"

With a horrifying roar, the giant rocket started to slowly, but surely rise above the launchpad and accelerate, shock diamonds visible in the exhaust flames of working plug-cluster aerospike engine, rest of the launchpad clouded in steam, created by evaporating water from the water suppression system.

"Tower cleared!" happily screamed Emperor Ivan the Second, tearing the microphone from the hands of announcer, when the giant machine passed the tower - the last remain of VAB's scaffolding. "T plus ten seconds, tower cleared, speed increasing as planned! The roar is terrific! The building is shaking! Look at that beauty go!"

People, who were in this room, saw the Emperor going flat-out childish, jumping around while laughing like a madman and crying tears of joy. The last time he was like that was during the launch of Imperial Moon Mission on the Water Dragon rocket.

 

\----

 

"Holy crap," mumbled one of the telescope operators in the Mossdeep Space Center. "Josh - do you see what I see?"

"If you're about the unreasonably giant rocket finally going up - yep, I do. Honestly, what in the name of Ray… sorry, but still, what is this thing?"

"No idea."

Image from kantonian observatory was quickly routed to the main screen, allowing everyone to have a nice view on the rocket.

Finally, the main engine in the first stage has gone silent.

"The stages separate… Wait, what? The first stage is actively decelerating, and the second… What it this? I don't even…"

The second stage indeed looked weirdly. Instead of the usual great bell of the rocket engine or the cluster of smaller engines, there was a thick plate with some kind of a tube in the middle of it, installed on several shock absorbers, a cone between the shock absorbers - and that's all.

On the screen, suddenly, something was launched from the cone, flew through the plate, and…

"Feed from O7 is dark. No idea, what the Reverse World was that, but the telescope's matrix is dead."

"Routing the SolOb6 to screen… Arceus the Original One, what the frak?"

"..." entire room got speechless, as the telescope camera, designed for studying the Sun, showed ship steadily accelerating on what seemed to be huge explosions - probably, nuclear in nature. Thick plate _(which, for some reason, was varying in thickness as the explosions were going - probably, serving as an another shock absorber)_ and long piston-based shock absorbers served well to protect the giant ship from explosions and soften the acceleration. Blast after blast, the giant ship was surely rising higher and higher...

 

\----

 

"Separation commencing," reported the pilot, looking at the screen, which displayed the data of active autopilot. "Separation complete. Booster is out of the danger zone. Initiating nuclear pulse propulsion. Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing."

Entire ship shook, when the drive bomb, launched from the gas gun, detonated behind the ship's aft.

Wave of superhot tungsten plasma, along with aerial overpressure wave, struck the plate, but thin layer of graphite worked well, ablating, but protecting the arcane-enhanced steel alloy underneath from getting damaged.

Under normal conditions, the sheer acceleration would've instantly killed the cosmonauts and collapsed the hull of the ship. However, thanks to the gas bags right behind the plate and heavy, two-staged hydropneumatic shock absorbers, the fraction of second of acceleration got elongated to a several seconds, proportionally lowering the loads on the machine and men inside it.

Milliseconds after the plasma from the detonation of the drive bomb dispersed, auto-sprayers deployed themselves and created a new layer of graphite on the plate, then retracted back, right before the new bomb was launched and exploded.

And then it repeated again, and again, and again, and again...

 

\----

 

"So, if I'm understanding even remotely right, the first and, so far, only launch table for ultra-heavy rockets got destroyed by the exhaust?" Empress Svetlana asked her husband.

"Yep," replied Ivan in surprisingly jolly voice. "Launch Table ST-1 has partially melted now due to insufficient power of water suppression system, but the ship is in space and there is barely any radiation trail in the atmosphere! By the way, launch stage recovered successfully."

"That's good to know, but still, we've lost our only launch table for this kind of rockets and it'll take a long time to repair it."

"I know. It's not like the Sea Launch Platform was an option for us at that time, though…"

"On the topic of the sea launch - are you planning to use the Water Dragon rocket for building the replacement space station, since the Space Lab Two was destroyed by the Rayquaza? I've seen some suspicious increases in funding…"

"Yep. The NUCLEUS rocket will remain for launching explo-flyers mostly, while the Water Dragons take lesser operations. One of them is getting prepared right now for launching the supply block to the "Red Explorer", when it gets to the orbit."

"Uh-huh. And what about your spaceplane project?"

"The Project BLUEBIRD? So far, so good, tests of the final version should begin in a week or so. I must admit, the hypersonic hybrid air-breathing nuclear rocket engines are still somewhat problematic, but we are very close to ironing those problems out."

"Range?"

"Unmanned - all the way to the Red Planet. Manned - to the Moon in a reasonable amount of time."

"Docking to the "Red Explorer"?"

"Possible through the expandable top adapter, but the spaceplane won't be able to fit into the docking bay."

 

\----

 

"We are on the action orbit now, comrade captain," said pilot, getting himself more comfortable in the acceleration chair. "Drive bomb magazines and propellant storages for the reaction control system are at optimal level after orbital injection, we can go to the Moon and back on those reserves in just a day!"

"Nuclear ordinance for anti-space engagements and planetary bombardment is nominal, awaiting codes and targets," reported weapons operator, scrolling through the lists and making some mental notes. "Point defense rotary cannons ready, main caliber railguns ready, Lance Howitzers ready."

"Targeting telescopes nominal, thermal scopes nominal, radars nominal," sounded the report from the sensors operator, who was already switching through the feeds, monitoring the surroundings.

"Radiators deployed, cooling system nominal, reactor nominal," said the engineer, feeling proud of his participation in creating power plant of this ship. "Shock absorbers are fine, pusher plate is fine, drive bomb launcher, graphite sprayers and plasma deflection cone are fine, RCS nominal. Oh, nearly forgot - life support is also nominal and will be in this condition for at least a year. We'll run out of food much earlier. And landers, along with space workpods, are also fine and ready."

"All comm systems are ready and tuned," added the comm officer, fiddling with headset, then suddenly turning pale. "Uh-oh. Comrade captain, FCC just told us, that Rayquaza is exiting the atmo and will engage us in few minutes, arrives from the east."

"Then all hands to battle stations!" ordered captain, feeling shivers. Of course, their ship was the technologies of tomorrow embodied, a state-of-art space warship, armed with the most advanced, yet reliable and efficient weaponry Empire has created, but their opponent was no less than the Sky High Pokemon itself, who was once considered by less developed humans to be god of the skies and even now, it remained a great force to be reckoned with. However, this battle was a decisive one. There can be only one winner… and all of the humans aboard the "Red Explorer" will do their best to make sure, that the Rayquaza won't be it.

"Aye-aye, comrade captain! Retracting the radiators, reactor output set to combat levels," reported the engineer, trying to keep his confidence in the great machine.

"Railguns and point defence are deployed, the capacitors are charging up, anti-space missiles are armed, Lance Howitzers are loaded," calmly stated the weapons officer. Among the fellow crew members, he was the calmest and most confident one - mainly because dozens of nuclear missiles and howitzer-launched shaped-blast bombs, along with electromagnetic railguns _(with nuclear and canister shots)_ and rotary cannons, were now under his control.

"RCS and bomb drive are ready," said the somewhat unnerved, but slightly cocky pilot. The drive bomb counter and RCS propellant storages indicators told him, that the battle can go on for a decent amount of time - the NUCLEUS chemfuel booster allowed them to save a lot of bombs during the ascent.

"Radars located bandit retrograde-breaking the atmo west and a little south, but no definitive lock so…" began the sensor operator, suppressing his nervousness with deep focus on work. Calling the Rayquaza "bandit" helped all of the officers to distance themselves from the fact, that they were fighting an actual Legendary now. "Yeah, telescopes acquired it! Locked on!"

"SCMs away, 3 "Firestorms", 4 "Firelances"!" nearly screamed weapons operator, pressing the launch trigger.

On the ship's hull, several round armored hatches opened, revealing missile silos. Right after it, seven of the streamlined machines of death were ejected by small explosive charges, turned around and engaged their solid-fuel engines, accelerating at 100 g and doing their best to track and intercept the designated target. Even with remote guidance from the ship, sensors of which were far superior to those, which could be installed on space combat missiles, it was not an easy task.

The Sky High Pokemon, seeing several dots leave the more massive target, started to perform the evasion maneuver, as uneasy as it was during the already-ongoing Dragon Ascent. It was a wise decision and, probably, would've helped… were it not for the missiles with Lance warheads.

When four of the missiles, armed with shaped-blast charges, reached the optimal distance, the "Red Explorer" sent a very simple command to them - "detonate". Under normal circumstances, this command would have served only for performing self-destruct… but the circumstances now were anything but normal.

The small stars of exploding 10kt thermonuclear warheads grew for a split-second in space. It would've been a nearly-harmless firework for the Rayquaza… but, unfortunately for it, for each of the "stars", more than 80% of the thermonuclear power got channeled and concentrated onto a small tungsten disk. Even this metal could not withstand such a magnitude of energy, so, it turned into plasma and, shaped and accelerated by the still undergoing fury of the fusion reaction into a tight stream, flew in the desired direction at the recognizable fraction of the speed of light.

Four jets of very hot relativistic plasma impacted Rayquaza. Even with the energy of Dragon Ascent surrounding the Legendary, it still hurt major time… and then the rest of the missiles came.

When the Sky High Pokemon was distracted with the pain from the nuclear lances, warship directed the last three small machines of destruction to come in-close and detonate the neutron warheads. Even though the effects of fireballs were negligible _(as it was with most of the nuclear detonations in space)_ , the neutron flux from explosions was pretty decent, especially with overlapping irradiation areas. Now that the Rayquaza's body was irradiated like this, the combat capability of this Legendary will be lowering and lowering as the time goes, until the radiation poisoning takes the max effect and turns it into the agonizing wreck, before the death finally comes. As a nice bonus, those explosions have also caused enough of a shock to the Rayquaza to cancel out the Dragon Ascent.

"All hits scored. I think the battle has started pretty good, comrade captain," cheerfully reported the weapons operator.

"Don't get too cocky," warned them all commander of this ship, silently reminding, that they were still fighting a being of incredible power, which held the atmospheric and orbital superiority undisputed for who-knows-how-many years, only occasionally leaving its position and allowing a few travels up there.

"Bandit has recovered from the shock and prepares to use the Hyper Beam," grimly stated the sensors operator.

"Acknowledged, stand by for rotation. RCS now firing," warned everyone the pilot, slightly smiling to himself.

The relatively small attitude control jets expelled streams of superhot hydrogen, turning the massive ship around.

The Hyper Beam is a powerful move. Really powerful. But it has some drawbacks - the first one being exhausting user and forcing it to spend some time recovering and the second being relatively low velocity of the energy beam itself.

The space is big. Really big. Even in low Earth orbit, dozens of kilometers are still considered pretty small distances.

Between Rayquaza firing the Hyper Beam and it getting to the "Red Explorer", a pretty long time has passed. Long enough for the ship to turn and take the stream of destruction not the nose- or side-first, but on the pusher plate, built to withstand close nuclear explosions and covered by ablative layer of graphite.

"Attack over, no damage to drive. Graphite layer restored. Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing," reported pilot, smiling even wider.

Wham. Wham. Wham. Only the crew of the ship, who got pressed into acceleration chairs upon the drive's operation, heard those sounds, as the vessel began to change its trajectory.

"Railguns charged, #2 locked on, "Firecracker" loaded. Firing," said the weapons officer with a slight smirk, as he pressed the trigger.

Deep inside the ship, a one of three groups of electric capacitors of tremendous, well, capacity, already charged by the energy from ship's nuclear power plant, discharged all at once, transferring the power to the two parallel rails of one of the simplest electrodynamic mass drivers.

The railgun spat out a projectile with barely any fireworks _(save for plasmified remains of launch assist armature)_. In the vacuum of space, there wasn't even a characteristic "crack" of sonic boom… and the projectile experienced no aerodynamic drag, keeping the velocity at constant level with no need for active propulsion. And since this velocity equaled more than 2503 meters per second, and the projectile carried a small nuclear warhead…

 

\----

 

""Red Explorer" is firing "Thunderlance" railgun, "Firecracker" 1kt nuclear shell"- emotionlessly said one of the operators in the Zemlino's FCC. "Hostile Rayquaza's biological armor is being damaged."

"Is she always like this?" whispered Emperor to the FCC's director.

"Sometimes."

"Huh. You know, I'm still unpleased, that we weren't able to make guidance system being capable of directing more than seven space combat missiles and two howitzer charges at once before the ship was launched…"

 

\----

 

"Bandit is temporarily inoperable, trajectory - full retrograde orbital, roughly similar to ours," reported the sensors operator. "The respite will be brief, assume re-intercept in 45 minutes."

"Acknowledged," said the engineer. "Deploying the radiators, beginning cooling."

Several small square hatches opened on the hull of the ship, allowing the thin metallic structures to unfold from them and start barely noticeably glowing dull-red, allowing the waste heat to leave the heat accumulators and prepare the machine for the new round of combat. Combat, which will need a lot of energy and leave a lot of waste heat.

 

\----

 

The big digital timer above the main screens in the "rubber room" of the Zemlino Space Center ticked off the seconds since the launch of the "Red Explorer". When it passed half-hour, Emperor said, “Try it now.” He put on his own headset.

Far outside of the armored launch bunker, across the entire Empire, both on the ground and on the sea ships, many giant parabolic antennas started turning around, trying to lock onto signature of the first space warship and establish connection.

"Routing through the Grey Sea fleet… link established!" happily reported the comm operator.

"Dancer, this is Pothouse, report!" said the Emperor, deciding to use codenames of both ship and flight control center for some reason. Sometimes, it was really hard to understand this man.

"Pothouse, this is Dancer. No big scratches so far, re-intercepting bandit in five minutes or so. Radiators are now retracted, cooling is internal, preparing to launch SCMs."

"Dancer, this is Pothouse, acknowledged. Be careful - bandit is likely to employ new tactics, don't let it hit the shock absorbers!"

"Pothouse, this is Dancer, understood."

"That's good. May the Red and Green Spirits bless you, guys!"

"Thanks. Warning, bandit is in range, engaging!"

The link cut off, as the ship resumed the combat.

 

\----

 

"Go, Dragon Lord, blast this thing!" young Draconid cheered, looking at the TV screen. An hour or so ago, the live broadcast of telescope and radar surveillance of the Imperial warship started and, less than an hour ago, Rayquaza started the battle with it. So far, the battle was going… strange.

The giant weaponized spaceship of the Soris Empire was constantly turning around, engaging her explosion drive from time to time and attempting to take beam and projectile attacks on the aft plate, which was more than capable of withstanding them without getting scratched, since the nuclear explosions were the primary method of propulsion for this ship. In addition to this, most weapons of this warship, as the TV commenter pointed out, were also using nuclear explosions to cause damage. Few Draconids knew about nuclear technology enough to understand full ramifications of it, but those, who did, were really worried. If the sorisians have harnessed the power of atom and truly mastered it, then even the mighty Lord Rayquaza was in danger.

 

\----

 

"Bandit now re-engaging!" warned everyone sensors operator. "Ancient Power, two seconds!"

"Incoming projectile attack," noted weaponry operator, who was obviously enjoying this battle. "Point defence firing… Attack neutralized. Seven "Firelances" away… Hits scored."

"Warning, damage to the lander bay #2 armor!" reported engineer in somewhat worried voice, then eased up. "No penetration, no damage to contents."

"Stand by for acceleration and rotation," said pilot in steel voice, while his eyes were burning with excitement of being among those, who fought the Rayquaza itself. "RCS and bomb drive now firing."

Hiss. Hiss. Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham.

The whole battle turned into series of reports and memorized actions, which happened a dozens of times on the ground simulator already, combined with sounds of propulsion and reaction control systems, weaponry and occasional hits to other places, than the pusher plate. Rayquaza was a formidable opponent… but the ship, originally intended for peaceful space exploration, then remade into warship, was designed to be capable to take on even the most powerful opponents and be victorious.

Entire nuclear industry of Soris was recently redirected to supply the ship with enough propulsion bombs and weapons.

Hundreds of millions were watching their battle right now.

They've had no right to fail, lest the humanity forever become prisoners of this planet, with insanely territorial feral dragon ruling the skies and killing everyone, who dares to try to break free of gravity's hard embrace and turn their eyes towards the distant stars. Not to say anything about the Pokemon Nation, which, probably, will consider starting the war with Soris Empire, if the ship goes down, along with all the nuclear armament.

"Bandit prepares Dra-Met, five seconds," noted the sensors operator, monitoring feeds from targeting telescopes, radars and thermal scopes at the same time.

"Acknowledged, railguns charged, #1 locked on, "Dustbin" loaded. Firing…" half-reported, half-mumbled the weaponry operator, looking at his screens. "Draco Meteor dispersed and denied."

Indeed, shooting a canister shell, loaded with tiny pellets of depleted uranium - byproduct of nuclear industry - right in the direction of Rayquaza's mouth was not a bad way to prevent the dangerous attack from being performed. As a nice bonus, several pellets hit eyes of the Legendary, causing it great pain and making it squirm.

"Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing."

Wham. Wham. Wham.

 

\----

 

The old dragon was hurt.

Really hurt.

For thousands upon thousands of years, it ruled sky undisputed. It showed the inferior beings their places. Even the Eon Duos were rightfully afraid of it.

A few… days? Weeks? Months? ago the Sky High Pokemon has destroyed the human constructions, which violated its territory. It thought, that this time, they'll learn, that higher skies and space are not meant for them… but they didn't.

They've decided, that they can force their point.

They've built a giant machine, far beyond any previous constructions. It wasn't like old ones, which were frail, sacrificing everything to save the weight - no, this one was huge and sturdy, capable of taking hits and unleashing inferno in return.

More than just capable, in fact.

The battle was going on for a several hours already, filled with constant flybys and intercepts, where the combatants did their best to injure the opponent as much as possible and don't get killed at the same time.

The whole body of the Legendary was either in pain, like from fire _(even though the dragon's body should've been resistant to it)_ , or slowly going numb. The machine, however, was still kicking with no visible major problems and unleashing attacks like no tomorrow.

In fact, for one of the combatants, there indeed will be no tomorrow. Someone will remain victorious and hold the control over skies, someone will be destroyed and burned upon re-entry.

The old dragon prepared for the final, death-or-glory attack… and suddenly the entire world for it turned blinding-white for less than a split-second, before everything disappeared and the complete abyss came.

 

\----

 

"All nine hits with Lances scored - seven SCMs, two Howitzers with "Matchsticks"."

"Bandit… completely inoperable and will re-enter atmo in two hours," reported the shocked sensors operator. "Guys… did we just... win?"

"I hope so," replied the engineer. "I really hope so, since the heat accumulators are nearing critical and if it goes on like this for another dozen minutes or so - it's either scramming the reactor, dumping a decent amount of our hydrogen for open-cycle cooling or deploying radiators mid-battle!"

"Deploy the radiators," gave an order the captain. "Power down the weapon systems and retract the weapons. Set reactor output to non-combat level. Return the ship to patrol orbit. Activate the habitation centrifuge. Report to the ground… that we've secured this frontier and avenged the 11th expedition to the Space Lab 2. Red Spirit should be proud of us now."

"Aye-aye, comrade captain!" replied all officers in unison, before the attitude control jets hissed again, the pulse engine thumped a few more times and commlink received happy screams from the FCC.

Captain of the "Red Explorer" barely cared about all of that. He was just happy, that this battle ended with them as victors… and he also hoped, that, whatever this dragon was doing to keep the balance on this boulder, humans will be able to do just as fine.

"Comrade captain, FCC congratulates us! They say, that, when we return to the ground, Emperor and Empress themselves will give us the Medal of Skies!" happily screamed the comm officer, who still could barely believe, that they've done what was considered to be next to impossible - they've successfully defeated the higher-grade Legendary!

"Yeah? Okay then. And what shall we do now?"

"... Emperor told me, that we should just… "Soar over space"? What does that mean?"

"It means, pals, that we did fine and we can take a break. A well-deserved break. Tell the service team to start total damage evaluation and repair."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Green Spirit - yet another mystical being in Sorisian mythology, which patrons those, who protect and help others.
> 
> Launch configuration of the "Red Explorer" and the "Red Explorer" itself were based on the data about the Orion Battleship, gained from here - http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesigns2.php#id--Project_Orion--Orion_Battleship
> 
> SCM-1 "Firestorm" - mid-range solid-chemfuel space combat missile with TD-ENF-10K-1 enhanced radiation thermonuclear warhead (a.k.a. "neutron warhead"), 10kt yield. Radio command guidance.
> 
> SCM-2 "Firelance" - mid-range solid-chemfuel space combat missile with TD-SB-10K-1 shaped-blast thermonuclear warhead (a.k.a. "Lance warhead"), 10kt yield. Radio command guidance.
> 
> PBRM-1 "Lightning" - planetary bombardment retro-missile with liquid-chemfuel engines, armed with TD-CB-25M-1 heavy "city buster" thermonuclear warhead, 25 megaton yield, or six TD-CB-1M-1 1mt yield "city buster" multiple independently targetable maneuverable reentry vehicles. Combined radio command/inertial/active terminal homing guidance.
> 
> Lance Howitzer - simple auto-loading mortar for firing "Matchstick" shaped-blast thermonuclear warheads.
> 
> STW-10K-1 "Matchstick" - shaped-blast 10kt thermonuclear warhead with basic radio command guidance system and some tiny attitude jets, launched from Lance Howitzer and detonated shortly after.
> 
> ERMA-2-S "Thunderlance" - 127mm electromagnetic rail mass accelerator (a.k.a. "railgun"), adapted for space and capable of accelerating shells up to 2506 m/s.
> 
> NRS-1K "Firecracker" - nuclear shell for the ERMA-2-S, 1kt yield. Contact/remote/timer detonation.
> 
> CRS-3 "Dustbin" - canister shot for the ERMA-2-S, depleted uranium pellets. 
> 
> RC-6-20-S "Chestnut" - 6-barrelled 20mm rotary cannon, adapted for space and used in the PD-1-20-S "Sweeper" space-adapted point defence system.


	7. Chapter 5. Soarin' over the space...

A small speck plunged through the atmosphere of Earth, burning pretty bright yellow. Dozens of radars and telescopes were tracking it. It's really ironic, but the Sky High Pokemon, who was supposed to rule the skies and above, was now helplessly falling to the ground, mercilessly dragged by gravity and burned by atmospheric ram pressure.

 

All Draconids, who were now watching TV, could not believe their eyes. The Dragon Lord, the great Rayquaza… got destroyed by the titanic machine, constructed by sorisians. The machine, which was crammed full of nuclear weapons, capable of obliterating cities, should they start flying to Earth.

 

In fact, the same thing could be said for most of other TV watchers… bar sorisians. For them, what little re-entry of the serpentine dragon they've seen, marked a beginning of a new age - an age of open skies, when people can turn their gazes towards the stars and not be afraid, that someone territorial and feral will stop their journey before it even starts.

 

While the rest of the world was either shocked, horrified or furious, Soris was celebrating the first victory of their first space warship. Now the other regions will know, that the Empire is not something to be tampered with!

 

\----

 

On the Grey Sea, a decent fleet, consisting exclusively of nuclear-powered ships, was underway, towing a giant floating unusually-looking rocket in the middle of the formation. Several ships with "buzzers" - arcanotechnological devices, designed to drive off the Pokemon before the launch - and depth charge launchers, a tanker with kerosene, an electrolyzer-equipped ship for creating liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on site, four deep space communication ships, several frigates with anti-air weapons and a single launch control ship - all of those machines were preparing for something great. A personal tiltjet of the Emperor, which was speeding to the landing pad of the launch control ship, only confirmed this further.

 

A long distance from it, a research plane from Kanto was flying, trying to get a decent picture of what the heck was even happening. If the reports of astronauts from a nearly year ago were to be believed, imperials claimed, that their Moon mission was launched by the similar rocket 3000 years ago… but how? And what was their reason for this launch, not even ten hours after the launch of their space warship? And what was the payload of this giant rocket?

 

\----

 

Young Draconid could not believe, what she was seeing. She once saw the Lord Rayquaza with her own eyes - a long, majestic serpentine dragon of incredible power.

 

What lied before her… wasn't like it. This one was thoroughly burned, up to the point when the originally green skin wasn't recognizable, some of the mug-fins were completely destroyed, eye sockets were empty and scorched, the horny ridges of mouth were chipped, one of the fangs was missing…

 

The strange crackling sound interrupted her thoughts and, less than a second after, someone rudely yanked her away and started to mercilessly drag her.

 

"What the Reverse World?"

 

"The less we spend time near the corpse, the better," the assailant replied, revealing himself to be Damien. "The Geiger counter is going crazy near it, as you've heard. When we are back at the Meteor Village, we'll need to throw away our clothes, shave all the hair on our bodies and wash ourselves thoroughly, lest the radiation poisoning get much worse."

 

"Radiation poisoning?"

 

"Valencia works on the nuclear power project, she knows a lot about it and lended me a Geiger counter. Let's go faster, since the sooner we decontaminate ourselves - the better."

 

\----

 

"Fueling of the Water Dragon is now finished. The rocket is ready to be set into launch position," said one of the launch control officers.

 

"Fill the cap's ballast tanks and set the rocket into launch position," gave an order the Emperor, who was just delighted to see one of his creations being ready to go flight pretty soon.

 

"Executing, Your Majesty."

 

Giant rocket started to slowly sink and, after several hours, stabilized itself half-submerged and vertical.

 

"The rocket is now in the launch position, Your Majesty. Buzzers working good, no Bedolangs or other Pokemon for several kilometers, all systems good."

 

"Excellent. Resume the launch countdown."

 

"Aye-aye."

 

\----

 

"Much better," said Damien, who has just finished thoroughly washing himself with soap, having already shaved everywhere he was able to. To his left, Helian sat, also washed and completely shaved.

 

"Now can you tell me, what is the meaning of all this?" asked them Renza, who was clearly not happy.

 

"We've seen Rayquaza's corpse. It's so radioactive, the Geiger counter near it goes crazy and, apparently, the corpse itself glows in the dark slightly."

 

"... Wait, what did you just say? Rayquaza's… corpse?"

 

"Yes. As much as it's shocking to us all, apparently, sorisian nuclear weaponry was able to kill the Dragon Lord. And no, you better don't go there, since, as I've already said, it's radioactive as heck. I think we've got a small radiation poisoning by merely standing near it. Good thing wind was blowing away from us too..."

 

"Damien, Renza, I don't feel so we…" started Helian, then fell to her knees and started vomiting.

 

"Uh-oh," murmured the shaved Draconid, carefully helping her to get back up. "Well, it's been six hours already, so, it shouldn't be so bad. Does your head ache?"

 

"Barely, but… yes," Helian said, trying to not throw up again.

 

"Well, Renza, now you see, what the radiation poisoning is. Bury the bag with our old clothing somewhere and get us a new ones. Oh, and also - call the Elder!"

 

"Will do," replied the scared Renza, sprinting out of the building.

 

"Don't worry, Helian, the worst part will be over in less than a 24 hours and all of it will be over in a month or so," murmured Damien, trying to calm the girl down.

 

\----

 

"... Ignition sequence start, four, three, ballast detached, all engines are running! Liftoff! We have a liftoff! Fifty-four minutes past the hour, liftoff on the Water Dragon!"

 

As those words were being said, the rocket, which was calmly floating in the sea, shuddered, the water around it started to rise from the giant bubble of exhaust gases, but the rocket was already lifting off and setting the course for beyond the sky, propelled by titanic aerospike engine in the aft and four smaller assist engines on top of the first stage.

 

"Never gets old," the Emperor said with a nearly childish glee on his face. "Ah, I remember, how hard it was to fit an aerospike in there… At least it works and is pretty cheap to manufacture and use, as well as recoverable."

 

"The combustion instability for the big bell was even bigger of a bastard to get rid of, though," noted one of the engineers, who worked on this project. "No wonder we've ditched it after a single launch and placed an aerospike engine instead."

 

"Yeah. Arcanics for stabilizing combustion in engine of this grade aren't cheap and aerospike is just better overall."

 

"Not for non-atmo conditions, though."

 

"Of course."

 

\----

 

"Zemlino has just reported launch of the Water Dragon, crammed full with cargo," happily reported the comm operator. "A hundred-something of drive nukes, a few tons of liquid hydrogen, two retro-missiles and, what's really important - repair supplies!"

 

"Cool!" whistled the engineer. "It's pretty much a miracle, that we not just survived yesterday, not just achieved victory, but also made it with no serious damage to the ship."

 

"Yeah, but this very un-lucky Hyper Beam, which passed right between the second-stage shock absorbers, was… unnerving," the pilot replied. "Even though they are armored, if the shock absorbers got damaged and stuck - we would've been left with no primary propulsion and, as you can guess, majorly screwed."

 

"To speak truthfully, you are the real hero of yesterday battle," noted the weapons operator. "I don't know, how you've managed to do it, but to take the most powerful attacks on the well-armored pusher plate or, at least, make them just scratch the hull's surface - it's more than something. If not for it, our ship would've got a few "unplanned ventilation ducts" - maybe, even through the drive bomb magazines or reactor!"

 

"Me? How about you? After all, it's you, who was constantly scoring the hits on this dragon and not letting it get a metaphorical breath!" retorted the pilot.

 

"Gah, I was just deciding targeting and launch priorities for the offensive weapons, while the fire control system did all the aiming and shooting!"

 

"Comrades, let me just say, that we were all heroes yesterday," interrupted them the captain, who was trying to prevent discussion from getting out of hand. "We all did our part in taking out the tyrant of the sky, so, no need to get hesitant about your achievements. By the way, it's time for us to go rest and allow second shift to take the stations."

 

"Aye-aye, comrade captain!"

 

\----

 

Deep under the Lumiose City, inside the War Room, quite a few people sat.

 

"So, basically, now we have a giant militarized spaceship above our heads," one of them said. If his badge was to be believed, he was the current Secretary-General of the Pokemon Nation. "As scientists from Unova told me, it uses nuclear explosions for propulsion and for weaponry."

 

"Nuclear explosions? Isn't that just a theory?" said a woman from Kanto.

 

"As you can see, not anymore," unovan president replied, slightly irritated from having to state something so obvious.

 

"By the way, Mr. President, I must note again, that cancelling the Castelia Project was a very, very big mistake," one of the nuclear scientists decided to put a word.

 

"Castelia Project? You mean, weaponizing Forces of Nature and using them against us during this war was not enough?!" the Hoenn delegate responded with a great fury in voice.

 

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" the Secretary-General decided to take a measure before the actual battle could've ensued. Even if no one had a Pokemon here, all-out physical pummeling was still not entirely out of the question.

 

"Anyway, I will stand on that cancelling the Castelia Project was a great mistake," scientist resumed his talk. "Since, apparently, Soris Empire had no moral or other restrictions in performing their own version of it, which resulted in what we see today - they've got nuclear explosives of many kinds, while we've never ever performed a single test, making the nuclear explosions pure theory until the recent events! We have absolutely nothing, that can even scratch their ship! And it is loaded to brim with nukes, probably, ready to turn entire regions into scorched wastelands! Even the Rayquaza itself fell before this horrible weaponry - by the way, we still have no idea, where should we dispose of this corpse, which is so radioactive, it glows in the dark..."

 

"Loaded to brim? Are you so sure about that? It's entirely possible, that they've exhausted their armament during the fight - there were quite a lot of explosions!"

 

"Not anymore," said a director of the Mossdeep Space Center, getting off the phone. "Just a few minutes ago, a superheavy rocket was launched from the sea. Of course, it's not the same kind of monster, but still something. For what it looks like, it's a cargo mission, designed to resupply their space warship. I'm sure, that there'll be a lot of nukes to replenish the storages."

 

"Arceus damn it," representative from Sinnoh mumbled, grabbing his head. "Can you contact the rulers of the Soris Empire?"

 

"The Emperor is now onboard one of the ships in the fleet, which launched this superheavy rocket. The Empress… we are trying to contact her, but she is not available right now and representative refuses to give any comments."

 

"And those damn journalists are on it again…" stated grimly the Kanto's representative, looking at the TV screen.

 

\----

 

"Workpods deployed, set to meet the cargo carrier," reported Pyotr Petrov, who was working as an engineer in the second shift.

 

On the outside, one of the lander bays opened, allowing two small, mostly-cylindrical crafts with several manipulators and chemfuel engines, to detach from the space warship and enter the interception course to meet the "Hauler" superheavy cargo spacecraft and ensure, that it safely arrives to the "Red Explorer" for resupplying the massive nuclear pulse-propelled vessel with drive bombs, hydrogen, spare parts and like this.

 

Right now, the pods were working in the automated mode, even though each of them was able to house a single human operator, should the situation require it.

 

As Pyotr looked on the flying pods through the secondary cameras, he thought, that, probably, Pokemon Nation would have used a Reuniclus or something for operation like this.

 

He still could not understand, how did it come, that they were in so close with Pokemon. Of course, cosmonauts of the Nation were using some kind of spherical containment devices, as the crew of the Space Lab 2 reported, and scientists of Soris Empire were going just crazy about them, but… how did it come, that they've relied on Pokemon so much?

 

\----

 

"Zhorik, how long do we have to wait?" asked the captain in slightly irritated voice. Right now, the entirety of this shift of bridge crew gathered in the mess hall in the outermost level of the habitation centrifuge, which was pretty cozy, with a big display on the wall, several stands with books and magazines _(mostly the "Human Will Conquer Space Soon!" and "Human Conquers Space!", because someone in the ground crew had a strange sense of humor)_ , a few tables with comfortable chairs and a galley with mini-bar.

 

"Not much… Here!" happily exclaimed the engineer, who has just managed to reconfigure one of the backup comm antennas into a TV signal receiver and jury-rig a decryption program for the broadcast standards of Pokemon Nation, before running the decrypted signal to the display. "Let us try to tune to one of their channels…"

 

A few minutes of fiddling with settings later, they were greeted by some kind of a news broadcast about their recent battle with, how the hoennians called it, Sky High Pokemon. None of the cosmonauts knew the general language of Pokemon Nation well _(though no one from Soris did as for now, even the linguists - the language barrier is not an easy thing to overcome!)_ , but they could get a basic outline.

 

"Taras Grigorievich, do they really think, that we sleep and dream of nuking their cities to ashes?" asked the perplexed sensors operator.

 

"Apparently, yes. Just like we are afraid of them using their Pokemon - especially Ghosts and Psychics - to wage a war on us. Teleport raids, guerrilla warfare and so on… In short, this'll be really bloody, should it happen. I don't know, if the people of Soris would be able to win."

 

"And they are afraid of us razing their cities from orbit, where nothing of their origin can reach our ship without getting intercepted. Makes sense… and parity - if they try to attack Soris, we blow their homes up with nukes and vice versa."

 

\----

 

"Drive bomb magazines reloaded, RCS tanks full of propellant, retro-missiles loaded into silos, damaged armor plates replaced. I must say, our ship is now almost as good as new", reported engineer Petrov, looking at screens. He was very happy, that there were no heavily-damaged parts, which would've required more repair than removing a damaged armored plate and slapping a fresh one in place, as well as the fact, that most plates were designed to be easily interchangeable. After the trainwreck of a repairability the Project 21A Space Ferry was, no one wanted to go through the same nightmare, except for Pokemon Nation with their Space Shuttle _(though even this was debatable)_.

 

"Wonderful," replied the current commander of the ship.

 

"Incoming transmission!" said the comm officer. "Patching through."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Human Will Conquer Space Soon!" _(10.05.400 AFE - 18.05.425 AFE)_ and "Human Conquers Space!" _(18.06.425 AFE and ongoing)_ \- monthly magazines in Soris Empire, which are mostly centered around the Imperial Space Program, but also host some comics and stories. Even though, originally, they weren't selling well, they've managed to rack up a really decent fanbase over time, especially after the Sergiy Vyugenko started to write his stories for those journals.
> 
> AFE - After Foundation of the Empire.
> 
> Water Dragon rocket is based on the real Sea Dragon, except with aerospike engine in the first stage _(second version of Water Dragon)_.
> 
> Bedolang - the Pack Hunting Pokemon, very dangerous aquatic predator, native to Soris. During the Shift, for the reasons yet unknown, most of the Bedolang population got time-shifted as well, while the rest slowly died out from inbreeding. At the current day, the shifted population is sufficient to safely breed and starts to become a sea hazard to rival Gyarados again _(in fact, before the Shift, packs of Bedolangs were known to hunt and kill Gyarados without much problems)_. However, due to the actions of Soris Empire, they prefer to avoid the ships.


End file.
